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The Pantie Protesters and the Kazakh Dream

A few protesters brandishing lacy underwear may not look like a threat to the stability of the state. But the authorities of oil-rich Kazakhstan took no chances on February 16th when a group of demonstrators waving their knickers appeared on the streets of the financial capital, Almaty. The “pantie protesters” were rounded up and led away. Their demonstration was ostensibly prompted by a rule regulating synthetic underwear due to come into force this summer under a new customs union between Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus… [But the real] source of anger was the devaluation of the Kazakh currency, the tenge, on February 11th. It plunged by 19%, causing fears of a spike in inflation and a dip in living standards in a country that imports many consumer goods….

The protests are small but they hint that Mr Nazarbayev’s unspoken social contract—in which citizens trade political freedoms for relative prosperity and social stability—is becoming fragile. Tensions surfaced in 2011, when 15 people were shot dead as striking oil workers clashed with police in Zhanaozhen in the west of the country. Now the devaluation has reminded many ordinary people—maxed out on credit and exasperated by the growing rich-poor divide—that they are not living the “Kazakh dream”.